TwitterFacebookInstagram

The Philippines. The church in the sea.

In the Bay of Manila, north of the Philippine capital, it is already possible to see what awaits the inhabitants of the coastal regions of the world: entire areas being swallowed up by the sea.  

Perhaps hardest hit is Sitio Pariahan in the province of Bulakan – once a flourishing village but now accessible only by boat.
The former inhabitants survive by living in stilt houses. Despite the dangers, especially during the typhoon season, they want to remain at home; earning their living by fishing, the sea is their only means of livelihood. Sitio Pariahan belongs to the parish of Our Lady of Salambao on the island of Binuangan. The parish priest is 45-year-old Fr Rouque Garcia. The community of Sitio Pariahan counts 4,000 members. Another eight villages, called sitios, are located around the Bay: Dapdap, Capol, Bunutan, Kinse-Torres, Sapang, Tucol, Rafael and Calixtro, all of which are accessible only by using the banka, as their small boats are called.

Father Rouque Garcia celebrating Mass at the Holy Cross Church of Sitio Pariahan.

One a month, Fr Garcia takes a banka to Sitio Pariahan to celebrate Mass. The banka initially goes towards the open sea and then turns north into the Meycauayan river, an ancient water-course flanked by dilapidated embankments.  Soon, the ruins of houses start to appear. Twenty minutes later, the boat turns left into a tributary. The remains of gnarled tree trunks and individual trees protrude from the water. The guard dogs at some of the abandoned stilt houses start to bark – left behind by their owners to protect the only goods they have. Meanwhile, dark clouds are gathering in the sky above.
The name of the first typhoon of the year begins with the letter A for ‘Ambo’ and it is passing over the Pacific; still at a safe distance. The boatman accelerates and tries to get his bearings. The water is deep at this spot and full of rocks. The river then spreads into a fluvial area covering the remains of a human settlement. Suddenly, in the midst of this apocalyptic scenery, a white building surmounted by a red cross appears on the horizon: the Holy Cross Church of Sitio Pariahan.

The urban landscape of Manila, with slums and skyscrapers. Sea port and residential areas. The capital of the Philippines, view from above.

Built in 1984, the church has become the symbol of the fall of the entire region. Surprisingly, the province of Bulakan was a bulwark of the first Christian mission in the Philippines. Spanish Augustinian missionaries came here in 1572, followed by the Franciscans in 1578. Fifty years earlier, on 16 March 1521, Portuguese Ferdinando Magellan, sailing under the Spanish flag, was the first European to set foot on the Southeast Asian archipelago. The Augustinian and Franciscan monks soon succeeded in converting most of the local population to Christianity. The Philippines soon became the most Catholic country in Asia – in honour of the King of Spain. The official celebrations for the quincentenary of Christianity have been postponed until 2022 due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
“It is really something marvellous to celebrate Mass in this church”, Fr Garcia tells us. “But we need to understand that this is not just a church recently devastated by a storm or a flood where the water recedes after a month or two. This is not the case. The church has become part of the sea. Slowly but surely, the water level has risen and is now inside the whole building. Why do I still say Mass in this situation? Because I want to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ and worship in his memory. It is a matter of service, sacrifice, thanksgiving, charity and humility”.

Celebrating Mass is a challenge both for the priests and the people. There are no longer any seats or benches in the church. The priest and the people are in water up to their knees “Sometimes, when the tide is high, the water reaches the windows”, Fr Garcia tells us. It costs a lot for the people of Pariahan to travel to the main church of Obando, so the priest comes to them to say the Mass. All the people live in stilt houses not far from the church.
Today, the community of Holy Cross is celebrating its patronal feast. The village head Saturnio Espirito is present and recalls the good old days: “Usually, the brass bands would play as they marched through the streets and dancers would perform for the feast of Holy Cross. In those days, life was very good here and there were lots of trees and plants everywhere. We could walk along the streets. What has happened here is unprecedented and the people cannot believe their eyes. We never thought it could happen to us “.
Sitio Pariahan was, at one time, a coastal village. It is now permanently under water that never completely recedes, not even in the dry season. We had a school, a basketball court, a church and cement-built houses. Today, most of the buildings are in ruins. The homes of those families who have decided not to leave are now on bamboo stilts. The people live by fishing. The cause of all this? Locals say the flooding started after 2011’s Typhoon Nesat, which devastated the area and destroyed dikes that kept water out, but according to experts, the problem lies beneath the surface. It’s called land subsidence, or the sinking of land due to the over extraction of groundwater through deep wells. Most provinces outside Metro Manila rely on these wells for fresh water. Even water providers in rural towns like Bulakan take water from below ground before distributing it to homes through pipes. According to Mahar Lagmay, professor and executive director of the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute, that land naturally subsides when underground sediments compact but it is usually replaced by new material in time. But in Pariahan, the sinking is just too fast.

Fisherman on boat in the sunrise© Can Stock Photo / zariam74.

According to Lagmay’s satellite monitoring, the village and nearby areas are subsiding by up to 4 to 5 cm a year, which results in flooding. This aggravates the effects of global warming, which raises sea levels in the area by about 3 to 5 mm a year.
Of the 100 houses once to be found in Sitio Pariahan, only 40 are still standing. Most of the inhabitants moved to terra firma in the nearby cities of Taliptip, Obando and Malabon, but they, too, are flooded during the heavy rain season. Similarly, millions of residents in the northern parts of Manila are threatened by flooding and there are evacuation centres in many places. As if this were not enough, the inhabitants are now threatened by a further disaster: right where their village is located, the new international Bulakan Manila airport is to be built. It is expected to cover 2,500 hectares of the sea and to be four times larger than the present airport. In future, 100 million passengers per year will land and take off from this airport.

Residents of Taliptip stage a protest action in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to oppose the San Miguel Corporation’s airport project that would displace hundreds of fisherfolk. (Photo courtesy of Save Taliptip).

Last October, the Philippine Senate granted permission for the large-scale project. Large protests were made both by the people of the place and various environmentalist associations. All to no avail. It is only a matter of time until the inhabitants of the village will have to leave their homes for good. At the nearby community of Bunutan, the church bells have been sent to higher ground. The island of Binuangan and the region around Taliptip will feel the enormous impact of the huge airport. Besides the noise and environmental pollution, the reclamation for the mega-airport will further aggravate the flood situation in the Bay of Manila – and all of this is happening while the polar ice is melting at an ever-increasing rate, causing a rise in sea levels. “If it had not been for the Corona pandemic restrictions and the quarantine measures in this parish, people might well have already moved to make way for the airport”, Fr Garcia informs us. “This is why we celebrate every Mass in Pariahan as if it were to be the last”.

Hartmut Schwarzbach/Kontinente

Charles de Foucauld. The Gospel in the land of the Sahara.

Just over a century after he died as a martyr, Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), who brought the Gospel to Islamic lands and lived among the Tuareg people in the Algerian desert, will be proclaimed a saint later this year.

Charles called himself a “missionary monk” and came to establish his hermitage in the desert in southern Algeria among the Tuaregs, a nomadic population of the Islamic faith.
After finishing military school with the rank of a Second Lieutenant cavalry officer, Charles abandoned the idea of pursuing a career in the army, which had become a bore for him. He moved away from the Christian faith in which he had grown up and led “a life without purpose,” as he would later admit.
At the age of twenty-eight, while not knowing how to direct his life, he felt the need to study the Catholic religion, driven by his cousin Marie de Bondy to whom he was bound by deep friendship and with whom he would always maintain a close correspondence relationship, considering her as his “spiritual mother.”

He resumed going to church where he would spend long hours repeating the same prayer: “My God, if you exist, allow me to know you.” He embarked on the path of conversion, helped by Abbé Henri Huvelin whom he adopted as his spiritual guide.
No longer interested in seeking proofs of God’s existence, Charles experienced God’s infinite goodness. Almost simultaneously with the rediscovery of faith, the desire for religious consecration was born in him.
Attracted by monastic life in 1890, he was welcomed into the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur, near Akbes (Syria). Life in the monastery, however, did not seem to be enough for him. Unsatisfied with the life in the Trappe, in January 1897, he left the monastery and went to the Holy Land, “so as to follow Jesus, the poor workman of Nazareth”. For three years, he lived as a servant in the convents of the Poor Clares in Nazareth and Jerusalem.
In the meantime, the desire to bear witness to the Gospel as a priest in mission countries where he dreamed of founding many hermitages dedicated to the Sacred Heart was maturing in him.
In August 1900, Charles returned to France. Fr. Huvelin agreed that he be ordained a priest. So, he went to spend a year in a convent praying and studying. In June 1901, he became a priest and asked to be called Brother Charles of Jesus.

Mission In Africa
Soon after, he decided to carry out his mission in Africa among Muslim populations. At the end of October 1901, he arrived in Béni Abbès, a little oasis in the Algerian Sahara on the borders of Morocco.
In January 1904, Charles left Beni Abbés and went to establish his hermitage at Tamanrasset, a southern outpost of the territories occupied by France, among the Tuaregs. From the very beginning of his presence in Algeria, Brother Charles had it clear in his mind that his mission was not to convert, but rather to carry out preparatory work for evangelization, “without preaching, but rather by learning the language of the people, conversing with them, and establishing friendly relations.” He was convinced that “the word is important, but example, love, and prayer are a thousand times more important”.

At the hermitage, Charles welcomed the poor, assisted the sick with medicines that relatives and friends sent to him from France, but above all he devoted many hours a day to the study of the Tuareg language (Tamahaq). He led a hard ascetic life. To the many hours of prayer, he added more work, particularly in the linguistic field. His daily diet consisted of a mush of crushed wheat starch with a little butter, dates, and bread without yeast.
Brother Charles strongly wished to share the mission with a companion to ensure the continuity of his work. He would make three trips to France in search of some priests willing to live the hermit experience in the desert with him, but he would never see his wish fulfilled.
He also hoped for the involvement of the laity in the work of evangelization and drew up the statutes of the Union of the Brothers and Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to “awaken vocations of lay people who would accept to settle with the Tuaregs”.

Like A Seed Of Wheat
In September 1914, war broke out between France and Germany, with immediate repercussions in the colonial territories. The anti-French rebellion grew, led by the movement of the Senussi coming from Libya, who were about to penetrate the south of Algeria. Radical Islamic preachers prophesied the coming of the Mahdi who would establish his kingdom, wiping out all traces of ‘Christian paganism.’
To win the Tuareg ethnic groups over to the cause of the anti-French revolt, the Senussi movement targeted those Europeans who had the greatest influence on the local population. They planned to capture the Christian marabout and take him out of the country to put an end to his influence on the local population subjected to the French authorities.

On 1st December 1916, the rebels tricked Brother Charles into opening the door to the hermitage– which, in the meantime, he had rebuilt as a real fortress to offer people shelter in case of armed attacks. They tied his hands behind his back and forced him to kneel. His home and sanctuary of prayer were ransacked.
The approach of two Arab soldiers on camelback enlisted in the French army interrupted the thievery. The 15-year-old boy who was guarding Charles panicked. He pulled the trigger of his rifle and shot Charles in the head. Charles made no sound. He slowly crumpled to the sandy earth and died. Brother Charles’ death seemed to fulfill what he had predicted a few years earlier: “Like the wheat in the Gospel, I must rot in the land of the Sahara to prepare the future harvest. Such is my vocation”.

Efrem Tresoldi

Africa. Catechists. Unknown heroes and heroines of the faith.

With a new Apostolic Letter Antiquum Ministerium (Ancient Ministry), Pope Francis establishes the lay ministry of catechist. In Africa catechists have been the cornerstone of the church. We present three stories of the catechists in South Sudan, where they have been important actors in the work of evangelisation.

The beginning of the Catholic Church in the rural areas of Nuerland, in Western Upper Nile, in South Sudan is unique.  Hundreds of catechists worked by themselves for nearly 25 years without the presence of missionaries among them. James Duol Kai is considered the father and the founder of the Catholic Church in Nuerland.  He was born in 1940 in Tiam, in Leer County.  During the first Anyanya war, James Duol lived with his family in Malakal. He was working as a guard in the prison of that town. One day, some civilians, Dinka men, were put in prison and they were sentenced to death.

James Duol Kai is considered the father and the founder of the Catholic Church in Nuerland.

When James came to know of this, he helped them to escape. He was discovered and put in prison. He was transferred to the prison of Port Sudan to complete his sentence there. While in jail, he met Fr. Peter, a Catholic priest, who was the chaplain of the prison. He talked to him about God, Jesus and the Catholic faith. When his prison term was almost ended, Fr. Peter told him to go to the Comboni Missionaries in Khartoum and ask for help. He gave him a letter of recommendation.  He went to Khartoum and joined the Sergi Club where Comboni Brother Sergi helped him find a job. A few months later, he joined the catechumenate. He was baptised on 16 January, 1961. He received the sacrament of confirmation on Christmas Day the same year. He married in the Church with his wife. Soon after, he went back to Adok and he became a trader.  Due to the war, he was forced to go back to Khartoum again where he kept in touch with Brother Sergi.
At the end of the war, towards the end of 1972, he returned to Adok again, this time determined to teach the Catholic faith to the Nuer in his hometown.  He started gathering some people in his house together with his wife and children. After a while, other Catholics who came from Khartoum joined them.

A chapel in Nuerland.

The congregation increased as did the catechumenate. His house was no longer suitable and, in 1974, they built their church with the cooperation of all.  In 1977, his own congregation chose him to be their catechist. James taught them for about two years and was then faced with a problem: he had catechumens ready to be baptised but there was no Catholic priest to baptise them. He was not discouraged by this situation. In 1979, he decided to go to Malakal and reported to Monsignor Vincent Mojwok, the Bishop of the diocese of Malakal, the number of catechumens who were ready for baptism.
Bishop Vincent gave him the authorisation to baptise and appointed him leader of the Catholic Church in the area of Adok.
Among the newly-converted Catholics he chose the best and appointed them as catechists and sent them to teach all over Western Upper Nile. He also became an itinerant catechist.

James Duol Kai’s tomb. Every year, November 7, the Catholic community of the parish gather to commemorate the Father of their Church.

In 1979, Catechist James created a committee to coordinate the work of evangelisation, to organize the program for baptisms and to liaise with the diocese of Malakal. While he was visiting one of the community, he was killed on 7 November, 1991 near Adok in cross-fire between two rebel factions. He is buried in the compound of the Catholic Church in Liap, in Adok. Today, the Catholics of the rural areas of Western Upper Nile remember him as the founder and the father of the Catholic Church in their territory. The catechetical centre of Saint Joseph’s Parish was named after him to acknowledge the work he did for the evangelisation of the Nuer and the foundation of the Church in rural Western Nuer.

Wherever she went she worked in the Church.
Women have played important roles in the Catholic Church in Africa. They are the ones that carry on the most activities in the communities. Many of them are catechists.
Mary Nyaluak Luny is a 50 year old widow. Born in Patit, Jagei, she was married while a teenager. After she had her first three children, two boys and one girl, life became very difficult for her. Her in-laws died, and her husband was killed in the war in 1985. She was forced to emigrate with thousands of Nuer to Ethiopia in 1987. In Ethiopia she met Fr. Benjamin Madol who welcomed her and her children into the church. At the end of 1988, she joined the catechumenate. When the government of Mengistu was ousted in 1991, the Southern Sudanese who were refugees in Ethiopia were sent back to their country. Nyaluak went to Nimule where she continued her training for baptism and was baptised with the name of Mary on 24 August, 1993. After her baptism she tried to live her life as best she could according to the Gospel. She worked with the priests, the sisters and with the bishop himself.

Mary Nyaluak Luny. She is the leader of the women association called: The Women of Saint Luke.

In 1995, Mary Nyaluak went back to Leer in Upper Nile. She decided to work with the missionaries who arrived in Leer in 1996. She also became involved in Church activities, first with the Legion of Mary and later in other ministries. With the help of the parish priest, she started the Women of Luke Association on 5 November 1997. In 1998, the parish priest organized training to prepare women catechists.
She joined the training together with seven other women.
Unfortunately the war reached Leer in June 1998. Many people were killed and tens of thousands of them were displaced. The missionaries were also displaced to other areas of Upper Nile. In the middle of the turmoil produced by the war, Mary Nyaluak moved to different places to save her own life and the lives of her children. Wherever she went she worked in the Church.

In 2002, she went to Nyal and got involved in the Church’s ministry. She started to reorganize the Women of Luke Association. They were dispersed by the war but the association did not end. She was appointed catechist on 1 August, 2004.  In 2005 she organised courses to train women catechists in Leer and Mayandiit, and she started the Sunday School of Religion in those two places. Today, she continues to pray every day with the Women of Luke and the Christian community and is always ready to serve in any work that is needed in the Church.

My vocation is to be a catechist
John Kuk Baluang was born in 1951, in Gany a village of Jagei in Western Upper Nile. In 1970 he went to Khartoum. There he met some friends from his home village in Jagei, who were Catholics. They tried to convince him to go to the Church but he refused. Every Sunday, they invited him to the Church but he declined. But one day he did agree to go with them, just to please them and out of curiosity. He liked the prayers, the teaching, and the people of the Church. He decided to become Catholic. At the beginning of 1974 he joined the catechumenate. He was baptised on 17 September, 1974. He was confirmed on 19 December, 1974.

In 1975 he went to Malakal. He started his basic education in that town. But he only reached primary three. He went back to Khartoum in 1978 and he completed his primary education there. At the end of primary school, he went to Bahr el Ghazal where he joined the Vocational Training Institute. In 1983 he went back home but the situation was bad in Jagei and the second civil war of Sudan started. He went to Ethiopia as a refugee. He spent the year 1984 in Addis Ababa and he settled in Gambela, a refugee camp for Southern Sudanese and home of the Ethiopian Nuer.
There he continued his education and in 1987, he was awarded the certificate of secondary education.
In 1989, he was elected catechist in Gambela. He accepted the appointment, because when he was in Bahr el Ghazal, he liked to work in the Church. In 1991 he became an itinerant missionary-catechist and taught the Catholic faith in many places. He worked hard to establish the Catholic Church in Koch.

John deeply believes in his vocation as a catechist. He says that God has been always with him and he has protected him from many dangers because he chose him to teach the Word of God to the Nuer. He remembers two events in particular. “In 1998, some militia launched a surprise attack on Koch while we were all sleeping. When the militia entered Koch they threw hand grenades in all directions. One was thrown into our house but by the grace of God it did not explode. We live today to witness to this miracle of God in our lives”.
On another occasion he narrates: “Two different Nuer factions (SPDF and SPLA) met in Koch to discuss their differences and try to make peace. Their meeting took place on 29 October, 1999. They invited me to the meeting as a Church leader to pray for the meeting and to participate in it. The end of the meeting was unfortunate. Both sides strongly disagreed and instead of making peace they started fighting. They used their guns and for a couple of minutes they shot at each other and I was in the middle! When the shooting ended, the place was filled with dead bodies. There was blood everywhere. I was really scared as there were some dead bodies on top of me. But I was alive! Twelve people were killed in the meeting place, but once more I was saved by the power of God. He protected me because I went to that meeting as a catechist, as a man of the Church. I went in the name of God. I always trust God in my life and he has never abandoned me. He has shown me in so many different ways his love and protection!”
Today John continues his work of evangelisation with great zeal, faith and generosity. He is based in Koch.

Fernando Gatkuoth Gonzalez

 

 

 

Togo. A Voodoo is born to us.

Among the waci (a name that means ‘the souls of our ancestors dwell here’) of southern Togo, the birth of a child is seen as a precious gift, a sign of divine blessings. We now consider the breech delivery.

Unusual births, ones that are so difficult that they endanger the life of the mother or the child, are placed in the context of offences committed by the parents against the family and society. These are punished by the voodoo, the supernatural powers used by God to intervene indirectly in the affairs of the world. This is why the birth of twins, albinos, babies born by breech birth (born feet first), Down Syndrome babies, or babies who are deformed, is seen as the apparition of a voodoo. In many cases, it is thought that the voodoo may have assumed the appearance of the child. Such phenomena, far from being seen as commonplace, are instead brought into the sphere of the sacred. Children born in this way are called ago and recognised as voodoo.

When an ago child is born, the parents are confined for nine days in the room where the birth took place and the door is closed from the outside. This period of seclusion (called phedhexo) has different purposes: to prepare the parents to come into contact with the voodoo who has been born and ‘initiate them’ into the mysterious powers of the cosmos, separating them from the ‘profane’ world and consecrating them as huno, ‘ministers’ or qualified representatives of the voodoo; and to bring the child into society and to help the parents to accept the voodoo-child. During the phedhexo, the family members spend their time preparing ‘the rite of coming out’, or vidheto, which will allow the child and its parents to leave the house.

After consulting the afa oracle, the paternal uncles go to look for a mother and father who have already had an ago child (and so have become huno or ‘ministers of worship’ of the voodoo ago) and they invite them to come and preside at the ceremony which will take place within a designated period (from three months to three years).
The ‘rite of coming out’ takes place on the ninth day of confinement. The huno mother knocks nine times on the door with her left hand, opens the door and picks up the mat, the loincloths and the money.  She then asks for clean loincloths for the child and her parents and gives them to them to put on. She then takes the new-born child outside, touching the bar of the door nine times with the foot of the child. She then takes the foot of the mother, touching the lower part of the door with it and, finally, she repeats the same gesture with the father. The imposition of the name then follows. If the child is a girl she is called Agossì (feminine form of ago). If the child is a boy, the name is chosen from among Agossu (male ago). From now on, the child may not be called by any other name, and cannot become an adept of other voodoo.

Vodulili
The child may now be taken to the market for the rite of presentation of the parents (asiphephle). Only after this ceremony will the parents be free to go to the market to buy things. The people give gifts in kind or of money to the ago child. When they return, a simple meal is prepared to celebrate this happy event.
If the parents can afford it, on the day of the vidheto, the vodulili rite, or ‘installation of the voodoo’ also takes place, in the room where the ago child was born. This installation is obligatory since the voodoo now dwells in the house and wants an altar to be erected so as to receive worship and be venerated by the people.

It is from this altar – a privileged place of encounter between the human and the divine – he will be able to show his power and his generosity. In the corner of the room a hole is dug 30-40 centimetres deep into which is placed a jar containing the symbolic objects of the ago voodoo: the head of a viper dwakpata, a rifle bullet, a little gunpowder, small grains of kalikuvi pepper, pieces of bark of the vhuti tree and of the baobab and an object of gold (sikawowo), plus some special herbs (kpanuhehe and adzuca). The hole is then covered with soil and there follows the great prayer (dhephopho) of the ancestors. Afterwards, a chicken is killed and food is prepared for the common meal.

Life force
Once the meal is over, the huno father cuts the hair of the parents and child, for the first time since the birth of the ago child. In this context, the cutting of the hair represents a rite of separation of the ago child and his parents from the ‘profane’ world, to bring them into the sacred sphere of the voodoo. The ‘minister’ then gathers up the hair and will bury it afterwards in the forest, in a place where nobody can find it.

Finding the hair would bring a curse upon the family. Having finished the haircutting, the minister prepares some ‘holy’ water in a vessel in which some special herbs have been placed, and carries out the washing of the parents and the child.
The brief ceremony of the azakplikpli, or ‘reunion of the sleeping-mats’, finally permits the parents to resume normal conjugal relations.
A breech birth is never easy and often, especially in the past, it resulted in the death of the mother or the child, or both. It is understandable that the birth of an ago child is considered an extraordinary event, ‘pregnant with power’. ‘Ago has neither mother nor father’, the prayer says. That is, the voodoo himself comes to live only because he wants to do so, and it is certain that he will be able to overcome, without much help from his parents, the difficulties of life. (A.G.)
Open photo: Village/© Can Stock Photo / homocosmicos

 

France. The Coming Anomy.

In April and May 2021, two groups of French officers (both retired and serving) from different branches of the armed forces wrote open letters to politicians to denounce the degrading of French
institutions and society.

In their opinion, this is due mainly to the growth of identity politics and groups that challenge French culture and history and, consequently, divide the country. Among other things, the military denounce the loss of state control in entire areas (especially urban) and forecast a situation of chaos that will lead to civil conflict. They fear that in the near future troops will be deployed to restore peace with the use of force not in a failing Third World country but in France.
Those who wrote the two letters seem to think that there is still room for manoeuvre, and a gloomy future for France can be avoided if the right policies are implemented.

The authors of the two letters have been accused by some French commentators of preparing a military coup or, at best, of unduly influencing the public debate. Maybe some sectors of the French armed forces do think that military rule will solve the country’s problems.
But the letters seem only to be genuine warnings to anyone who wants to listen. Those who wrote them know that if France enters a spiral of chaos, the soldiers led by them will be deployed in their own country to fight an internal threat. Sometimes the whistle-blower is mistaken
for the troublemaker.

Feral cities
The predictions of these generals and officers are similar to what David Kilcullen (a former Australian officer) wrote in “Out of the Mountains”, a book on the future of war published in 2013. Kilcullen, among other things, spoke of a future in which large parts of the world population will live in neighbourhoods that will escape the control of the state.

He wrote of “feral” cities, urban areas “moving backwards in time and downward in social order, regressing to the warlike chaos of the wild – not a non-city but an anti-city, a perversion of the natural way of things” (page 69). Some of the French officers were deployed in places like Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, and Mali that look like what Kilcullen described.
According to Kilcullen, “society abhors a governance vacuum. People will replicate police when the police are inadequate” (page 95). If a state retracts from some areas of its territory, other entities will take its place (criminal gangs, traditional leaders, etc.) and will rule that area with some kind of violence. It seems that what Kilcullen forecasted will take place also in France.

Anomy and anarchy
The situation described by French officers and Kilcullen can be defined as “anomy”. This idea, developed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, can be translated as a “condition of absence of law”. Due to a series of conditions (war, political crises, pandemic, etc.) the principles and the laws that regulate the life of a community weaken to the point that they have no more sense for the people they are supposed to influence.

In the third book of his “History of the Peloponnesian War”, the Greek historian Thucydides describes this situation in the city of Corcyra during the Peloponnesian war. “With all life thrown into chaos at this time of crisis for the city, human nature triumphed over law: it had always been inclined to the criminal breaking of the laws, but now it revelled in showing itself the slave of passion, a stronger force than justice, and the enemy of anything higher. People would not have set revenge above piety or profit above adherence to the law if envy had not worked its corrupting influence on them. And though the commonly accepted laws in such areas underpin everyone’s hope of personal rescue if they meet with trouble, men think they have a prior right to set these laws aside when taking vengeance on others — and not leave them intact against a time when they themselves might be in danger and have need of one of them” (translation by Martin Hammond, Oxford World’s Classics).
Anomy is different from anarchy. Anarchy can be loosely described as “a condition where there is no ruler”. In principle, an anarchist aims to build a society with rules accepted and implemented autonomously by its members with no authority to impose them.
One can discuss on a theoretical plane if that idea is feasible but, in this case, it is important only to notice that anomy is different from anarchy. And it is much worse.

The Wild West
It would be easy to describe anomy using the image of “The Wild West” usually used by the press and taken from the movies.  But there is neither romance nor heroism in anomy. As described by Thucydides, in this condition every rule is refused, and egoism takes the central spot at all levels. Violence becomes the main tool since for an individual there is no other way to reach his or her goals (or at least he or she thinks so). Society morphs into a set of groups of people temporarily linked mainly by self-interest that perceive other groups as competitors and possible aggressors. There is no common history, shared values, or unifying goals to keep society together. Since there is no trust in other groups and in a common system of rules to solve the problems, the use of violence is only a matter of time. And there is no limit to it, such as the principle of the proportionate response to a threat.

Some could even find this situation desirable, as limitations to the pursuit of his or her goals seem to fall short. He or she may be strong enough (in terms of wealth, connections, physical strength, etc.) to impose his or her will. But sooner or later, violence will overwhelm him or her, since the number of groups and sub-groups that fight to prevail tend to grow due to rivalries. This dynamic will lead to chaos. Some individuals or groups may try to exploit the situation to replace the government. By doing this they will surely tear the social fabric apart. And, due to the complexity of reality, it is probable that they will be overwhelmed by the violence they unleashed.

Everyone is involved
The French officers have shone the spotlight on a danger that is of concern not only in developing countries but in all countries. The social fabric can be destroyed, the ties between individuals and groups can be severed and internal conflict can be unleashed. Therefore, every society should make a deep self-analysis to understand if it is taking this risk.
The degrading of society is not an unstoppable process, even if it progressively accelerates over time and, at a certain point, things could fall apart. It is also true that there are different forces that, voluntarily or not, are allowing this dynamic to progress.
But a collective effort could avoid the collapse. The question is: Are political leaders aware of this danger?
The fight against anomy is of concerns to all citizens. Since at all levels there are individuals that try to divide society, there must be other people that try to unify it.

Innocent Pond

 

 

Child soldiers. The difficulty of ‘adapting to peace’.

There are at least eighteen countries, where children are recruited and used in armed conflicts. From regular army to rebels, from guerrilla movements to drug cartels. The phenomenon has assumed the status of a humanitarian disaster.

Dahara was 15 and had never used a weapon until he arrived in Libya, together with his eighteen-year-old cousin Hagar. They got into a pickup truck in their tiny village in Chad and from there, together with others, they made the long desert journey lasting for days and reached a training camp in the south of Libya.
Before they left, he was told they would go to work in Libya and would afterwards go to Europe if they wanted to. Instead, he was given a gun. He had to follow the orders of some Libyan militiamen. There were many mercenaries there from Chad, Nigeria and Mali.

At the Al Jazeera military base in the outskirts of Mogadishu, in Somalia, Idris is a new recruit at the age of ten. He likes drawing. His leader gives him some paper and he uses it for drawing. He has very little time left as his instructors are in a hurry to get him and the other recruits ready in a few weeks. Idris is too busy to pursue his hobby. He imagines he will be a painter when he grows up. In his free time, he meets Yusef, also ten years old. But his friend is lucky, with better clothes and better food. Yusef is a member of the bodyguard of a government official: that is why he always seems to be better off.
The child soldiers are forced to join the armed groups in different countries of the world and trained to kill. In the context of the Covid-19 global pandemic, the ‘virus’ of violence from which the child soldiers suffer in situations of armed conflict is even more lethal in that it destroys their life, their dignity and their future.

It is estimated that there are about 250,000 minors engaged in war operations, used as soldiers and forced to commit unspeakable crimes. Many of them are aged between 14 and 18 and many were recruited at the age of ten. There are at least 18 countries where, from 2016 up to now, the use of minors in armed conflicts has been documented: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Colombia, The Central African Republic, The Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Libya, The Philippines, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Despite all efforts to counteract this phenomenon, the number of recorded cases has continually increased between 2012 and 2020. In 2019 alone — UNICEF maintains — around 7,750 minors were recruited, used in their dozens by guerrillas, armed groups and regular armies. Somalia, according to UN sources, is one of the states most involved with over 1,500 child soldiers, mostly kidnapped by al-Shabaab and forced to fight. In Central Africa, where minors were used by all the main parties to the internal conflict that has gone on since 2013, the phenomenon has assumed the status of a humanitarian disaster.
In Colombia, even though a peace accord has been signed between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia- Ejército del Pueblo (FARC), other armed groups continue to recruit children. They are used not only by guerrilla movements like the Ejército de Liberacion Nacional  (ELN), but also by demobilised paramilitary groups such as Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

According to a study by Defensoria del Pueblo, a public Colombian institution, the average age of recruits is 12. The ELN guerrilla groups are composed, according to some estimates, of 40% minors while in the AUC paramilitary militias minors amount to 30%.
In Mexico, corruption, blackmail and kidnapping are the usual methods used by the drug cartels to recruit children. According to the ‘Red por los derecho de la infancia’, the narco-children number about 30,000. Not all of them are armed; most of them are informers or drug-pushers. In the agricultural areas of Sierra di Durango and Michoacán, they are used in the cultivation of drugs.
The youths often play an important part in human trafficking and the kidnapping of migrants. Some of them become ‘sicari’ (assassins).
One of the 17 aims of sustainable development established by the UN by the year 2030 requires that states adopt immediate and effective measures to guarantee the prohibition and the elimination of all forms of work by minors, including the recruiting and use of child soldiers and an end to all forms of work by minors before the end of 2025. The aim seems very remote indeed.

Recuperating child soldiers represents the most difficult part of what is required to provide a better future for the boys and girls marked by terrible experiences of violence. Following the end of various conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, tens of thousands of child soldiers were sent home. Very often the children recruited in refugee camps have no families, either because they lost them or killed some members of their communities and are therefore unable to return to their villages. UNICEF and a number of NGOs are helping the children to become part of transition structures as a first step towards ‘adapting to peace’, where they attend professional training courses that open up job possibilities.
The psychological problems are not to be underestimated: the children who have committed atrocities are marked by these experiences for their whole lives; their psychological recovery is essential for a new life.

Last February 12, the International Day against the use of child soldiers, the EU High Commissioner, Josep Borrell, and the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the UN for children and armed conflict, Virginia Gamba, issued a single communique to draw attention to this tragic but still globally widespread phenomenon. As the communique states, despite all the international efforts, children continue to pay the highest price in the conflicts of the world and to be recruited to fight – and consequently are deprived of their fundamental rights. It also indicates the importance of universalising the ratification of the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000, according to which minors may not be recruited until they are eighteen years old.
Even though 170 states have signed the Protocol, it is far from being implemented completely. Increasing awareness of the phenomenon of child soldiers is not enough: what is needed are action and concrete commitments to ensure that minors are really protected and that their rights in infancy are respected.
Social rehabilitation is a long journey, though it is not impossible. Ensuring these children the right to grow up in a protected environment, with education, access to secure schools and work experience, means ensuring their right to life itself.

Julien Kadiri

African Youth to promote Peace and Security.

Despite challenges of unemployment, corruption, entrenched political leadership, and political violence, many African youth have found constructive avenues to promote peace, effective governance
and reform.

Africa remains the world’s youngest continent with a median age of 19.7 years. By 2050, one in three young people will live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Still, 80-90 percent of African workers are still engaged in the informal sector. Each year, 10-12 million African youth enter the labour market but only three million formal jobs are created annually. Meanwhile, nearly half of all African countries rank in the bottom quartile of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. These trends underscore mounting social pressures.

Sixteen countries in Africa are currently engulfed in major armed conflicts while others face varying forms of violence and political instability that undermine the social fabric of African societies. These conflicts impede development and economic growth and place further strain on the ability of African youth to obtain jobs. Despite this array of challenges, African youth are engaged in a variety of activities aimed at resolving these conflicts and building greater social cohesion. These efforts have harnessed the talent and creativity of African youth and channelled them to rebuild social ties, encourage dialogue, and facilitate healing and reconciliation.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has faced decades of conflict and political instability, young people are at the forefront of efforts to mend social ties. The National Partnership of Children and Youth in Peacebuilding (NPCYP), a conglomerate of Congolese organizations based in Goma, is using arts to promote peace and coexistence. Located in the restive North Kivu Province, Goma has seen unrelenting levels of political violence since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Despite this inhospitable environment, NPCYP has been harnessing arts not only to build peace and encourage healing but also to empower young people who have endured the bitterness of conflict and its associated trauma. The initiative involves musicians, poets, and artists to creatively express themselves, providing the basis for discourse. These efforts have fostered mutual trust and an attitude of coexistence among young people from different backgrounds. It has also opened a space for greater dialogue about their role in consolidating peace.

In South Sudan, young people are using sports to build peace and mutual trust among warring tribes engaged in cattle rustling. For decades, South Sudan has been ravaged by political conflicts as well as intercommunal violence related to cattle rustling and abduction of women and children. Through the Wrestling for Peace Initiative, South Sudan Wrestling Entertainment— a local organization founded and led by young South Sudanese—is using the indigenous sport of wrestling to promote peaceful coexistence across South Sudan’s many tribes, especially in restive Jonglei, Lakes, Eastern and Central Equatoria States.

The initiative mobilizes wrestlers from cattle camps and brings them to Juba for a month-long competition. Aside from the tournament itself, side-meetings are organized between youth leaders and chiefs from different communities. The spectators who come to watch the matches are charged ticket prices, which helps fund the initiative. Through engagement in this program, the youth from rival communities have forged long-lasting relationships that have contributed to conflict resolution and management at the local level.

In Nigeria, where ethnic and religious violence has embroiled parts of Africa’s most populous country, young people are working hard to promote peace through cultural exchanges and interfaith events. The Centre for Equality and Equity, a Nigerian civil society organization, provides online courses for youth and activists to engage in interfaith dialogue aimed at reducing inter-religious violence. This initiative, launched in 2019, has expanded the scope of peacebuilding efforts.

Organized virtually since COVID, the program targets youth between the ages of 18 and 29 and challenges them to understand cultures other than their own by learning about different languages and religions. The program aims to counter extremism that weaponizes religion as epitomized by Boko Haram, which has devasted parts of north-eastern Nigeria. The objective is to encourage religious tolerance and counter ethnic polarization by providing mutual understanding.

The inability of many African governments to perform and deliver services for their citizens has contributed significantly to the rising tensions between a reform-minded youth and an older generation of political actors who wield power through the politics of exclusion. This is reflected in the pattern of corruption that has plagued many African governments. Five out of the ten worst performers in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index hail from Africa.

In order to promote accountability and good governance, the Open Governance Institute, a Kenyan-based budget and policy research organization, is empowering youth, women, and civil society groups to directly participate at the local level in Kenya’s decentralized government. Open Governance Institute generates research and provides training opportunities for young people to contribute toward determining budget priorities and providing feedback in the use of resources toward stated objectives. This participation of youth has helped align resources to the priorities identified by citizens as well as empowered them to monitor the implementation of planned activities.

The Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS), a continent-wide think-tank based in South Africa, is providing civic education focused on elections and governance to young people through regional education centres across Africa. The Youth Programme on Elections and Governance is one of the four core programs run by MINDS. It aims to help African youth understand the power of their numbers and how they can leverage this to bring about positive change.

Specifically, the program enables youth to understand how some political leaders use the politics of exclusion to subvert democracy on the continent. MINDS also encourages greater youth participation in electoral processes and cultivates ethical and adaptive leadership qualities in the next generation of African leaders. The undermining of democratic governance and accountability has not only provoked violence in many African countries but it has thwarted the interests of a majority of African citizens, including youth.

The Network Movement for Justice and Development and the Kenema District Youth Coalition use participatory videos to encourage dialogue among the youth of Sierra Leone on issues of governance. The initiative has resulted in greater dialogue between youth and local government representatives leading to improved governance outcomes.

Rising inequity from poor governance and abuse of power is especially impactful on youth. Their challenge is to use the tension between the old guard and new for constructive instead of destructive engagement. This tension, thus, provides an opportunity for young people to step up and engage directly and positively.

Despite the enormous challenges the continent faces, young people across Africa are finding avenues to contribute constructively. Through these initiatives, young people are not only learning and increasing their capabilities, they are effectively making things better for themselves and their communities.

The creativity and diversity of initiatives young Africans have engaged in to promote peacebuilding and good governance demonstrates the capacity of youth for innovation and problem-solving. Despite the general exclusion of youth in decision-making, other opportunities exist for them to have their voices heard and for them to drive change.
These opportunities can lead to meaningful engagement that contributes to improved governance and security even when a situation
may appear hopeless.

Peter Biar Ajak/Africa Centre for Strategic Studies

2021. The International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.

It is estimated that there are 152 million children in the world who are compelled to work with 72.1 million of these in the African continent alone. Out of these, 31.5 million are engaged in heavy and dangerous work. Covid-19 has aggravated the situation.

Before sunrise, Jean Pierre sets out on the rough path that leads to the mine. On his way, he passes the school thinking how good it was to attend the lessons and playing with his friends in the care of their kind teacher. Jean Pierre is ten years old and one day is just like any other, as he works in the Alga goldmine located about 130 km north of Ouagadougou the capital of Burkina Faso. The mine is impressive. It consists of a barren slope covered in grey dust and pockmarked by dozens of pits, some covered by tumbledown shacks. Hundreds of people are busy working around those holes, their faces and clothes disguised by the dust.

Every morning, the ritual is repeated: the Alga miners descend on hand-operated winches into the pits more than 170 metres deep. They work twelve-hour shifts. First, they must dig a pit down to the level of the gold-bearing vein and then proceed horizontally following the veins. They use dynamite to extract the precious metal. The pieces of rock are collected in sacks and brought to the surface. There are many children to be seen crawling in the dust amidst the noise of the generators and other machinery. Some of them are less than ten years old. They break the rocks into small pieces or separate the gold using toxic mercury. Others go down into the pits. Many children take amphetamines to keep working, reduce anxiety and withstand hunger.

Today, it is calculated that there are 152 million children doing the most diversified jobs. Of these, 72.1 million are to be found in Africa (there are 62 million in Asia and the Pacific area). Anyone who has spent some time in Africa considers this number an underestimate.
In African countries, it is quite normal for children to work and this is no cause for scandal.
We are obviously speaking of light domestic work which, in rural areas, includes fetching water from the well or firewood in the bush. These tasks are seen as lessons in growing up, learning how to obey one’s elders and make that essential contribution required by very low-income families. There are also small jobs to be done helping in the fields or fishing for some hours of the day.
The problem arises when the work – sometimes heavy – occupies the whole day, depriving the child of the hope of personal and social betterment provided by attending school. Then there is the question of heavy and dangerous work. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that in Africa alone 31.5 million children work in mines, and on tobacco and tea estates.
Some children involved in recycling material are seriously exposed to substances that are dangerous due to their high toxicity.

Children pan for gold in a hinterland village in the Philippines. (photo credit: Mark Saludes)

The highest percentage of child workers (59%) belongs to the 5 to 11 years age group. In most cases, their work is not remunerated except with a plate of food. Already in 2015, the world leaders signed up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The aim: ‘To eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025, end child labour in all its forms’.
Things have not followed this path and this was not due to the pandemic. The changing economy, demographic increases and other factors prevent government efforts from moving in the right direction. This is claimed by the technical overseers of the development plans. Doubtless, the time has come for the less fortunate to combat what is happening in some societies.Recently, the ILO sounded a new alarm: a world crisis in the world of work. The crisis is the direct consequence of the pandemic and is numerically quantifiable: during 2020, 255 million full-time jobs were abolished.

This is an alarming figure regarding the global situation and will impact especially the young generations and makes it less likely that jobs will be available for people with no particular qualifications. In such situations, the instinct to survive overpowers any moral questions or good resolutions by international agencies.
According to the Global Employment Trends for Youth, between 2018 and 2020 in Africa, the unemployment level amounted to a little over 40% just as the rate of extreme poverty also reached 40%. This is the situation in which not only children and youth who are now going to school will find themselves, but also those who ‘collaborate’ in the family economy.It is obvious that the goal of eliminating child labour must be concentrated on programmes involving states, work policies, vocational training programmes and even social programs with families. The obligation of sending children to school cannot be seen as a duty where a basic livelihood is lacking but also as a hope that things will improve through education.Covid-19 has certainly worsened the situation, especially for the weakest.

The World Health Organisation has sounded the alarm: about 66 million children will soon find themselves in a situation of extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic, a huge number that is to be added to the 386 million already in such a state.
The forced closure of schools, in some cases for 10 consecutive months, has left millions of children without education, with girls the worst affected. Many governments have not provided adequate assistance to attenuate the impact of the economic recession which has had a disproportionate impact on such vulnerable groups as migrants, minorities and low-paid workers and has worsened the present challenges such as child labour, poverty and inequality in Africa.
(Open Photo: Nasrin (11) fixes her tools for picking through garbage at a garbage dumping site in Dhaka, Bangladesh. © UNICEF/UNI123150/Khan)

John Mutesa

DR Congo. Towards a permanent state of siege in Eastern Congo.

As the security continues to deteriorate in Eastern Congo, President Tshisekedi declared a “State of Siege” on the 6 May and considers to expand it indefinitely as long as the situation does not improve.

Eighteen years after the official end of the war in Eastern Congo, and the presence since 1999 of over 20,000 UN troops, representing an annual cost of one billion dollars for the international community, the region is far from stabilised. The security has deteriorated so much that President Felix Tshisekedi declared on the 6 May the “state of siege” in the Ituri and North Kivu provinces. The state of siege is much stricter than a state of emergency. Civilian authorities were replaced by military and policemen in both provinces. Governors, provincial MPs and civilian courts were indeed suspended. New mayors were appointed in the capitals of both provinces, Goma and Bunia. A curfew was imposed. House searches are now authorised at any time, day and night. The authorities are allowed to ban any publication or rally which may represent a threat to public order, to restrict the movements of people as they please and to bring suspects to military courts.

Félix Antoine Tshilombo Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

President Tshisekedi seems determined to end the current situation at any cost. It looks so desperate that he has even decided to call to rescue the Ugandan People Defence Force (UPDF) despite the dispute before the International Court Justice between both countries over the Congolese claims for compensations for the damages caused during the Ugandan occupation of Eastern Congo between 1998 and 2003.
On the 11 May, the commander in chief of the Ugandan armed forces, general David Muhoozi Rubakuba came to the city of Beni in North Kivu to set up a centre for the coordination of the operations of the UPDF and the Congolese FARDC forces against the Ugandan-born Allied Democratic Forces rebels (ADF) who have claimed allegiance to the Islamic state and are now operating under the name of Madinat Tawhid wa-l-Muwahidin (MTM, “The city of monotheism and monotheists”. In May 2019, a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson mentioned the existence of “meaningful ties” between IS and the ADF.
The ADF whose founders belong to the Muslim Indian-born tabliq sect are accused to have killed over 1,000 people in North Kivu since 2014, are now rated as the main terrorist threat in Eastern Congo. One of the challenges is that the group which was born from the merging of the Ugandan Muslim Freedom Fighters Movement, a Sudanese-backed militia, and of the National Army for The Liberation of Uganda (NALU), whose aim was to create the independent state of Rwenzururu in Western Uganda, has now strong Congolese connections. The proximity of the Bakonjo ethnic group of Uganda with the Nande and Talinga of the DRC has contributed to increase ADF’s influence in Congo. Nowadays, the ADF have more Congolese fighters than Ugandan ones.

Butembo City. Gavin Finnegan/ CC BY-SA 4.0

Yet, the ADF is not only an Islamist militant organisation. Racketeering, extorsion of property, blackmail or mere survival are other motivations for its fighters, says the New York-based Congo Research Group.
Unfortunately, the ADF whose main headquarters are in the Mount Ruwenzori area, are not the only threat. Further South, several Mai Mai groups from the Nande tribe are spread between the cities of Butembo and Lubero. Then, the area, North of Goma, between Rutshuru, Katale and Ishasha, is virtually a Hutuland, and is almost completely controlled by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda created by the Hutu genocidaires in exile. Yet, their expulsion is not an option since most of these fighters who are sons of genocidaires are married to Congolese women. Then the Virunga National Park, has become a sanctuary for dozens of Mai Mai groups (Lafontaine, Jackson, Nguru, Charles, Nyatura, Dario Syaghuswa, etc…).
Many of these were born as self-defence organisations against Mobutu’s army who looted the local populations.

Congolese FARDC forces. (infocongo.net)

In this context, since the proclamation of the state of siege, the FARDC claimed that they have regained control of 12 villages in North Kivu, in the Walikale, Rutshuru and Masisi areas. On the 1 June, the Congolese army reported that 70 collaborators of the ADF were arrested during an operation called Sokola 1 while the Defence Ministry said a network of criminals who beheaded their victims in Ituri had been dismantled.
However, in early June, the Civil Society of North Kivu deplored that the first month of state of siege did not bear the expected results with still a very high toll of casualties amounting to 100 deaths in Ituri and 157 in North Kivu  “Few military operations have been carried out since the beginning of the state of siege and the security of civilians has deteriorated in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces”, said experts from  the Kivu Security Barometer, set up by Human Rights Watch
and Congo Research Group.

Virunga National Park. Guy Debonnet /CC BY-SA 3.0

On the 25 May, 17 villages of the Ruwenzori area were abandoned by their inhabitants following attacks from the ADF rebels. Other attacks were reported on the 7 June against the displaced camps of Boga and Tchiabi, during which the hospital of Boga was destroyed by fire and 50 people died in the incident. The ADF are recruiting well beyond their stronghold as showed the arrest by the Congolese army South Kivu youths at Eringeti. To make things more complex, a Nandé MP, Jean-Paul Paluku Ngahagondi, explains that the nature of the conflict in North Kivu is not a “holy war” but rather a conflict for land between Nandés and Hutus. Accordingly, no message of Muslim predication has been heard in the region. Moderate Muslims are also paying a heavy toll; The imam of the Mavivi Mosque near Bunia, Cheikh Moussa Djamali who spoke against the jihadists and one of his colleagues were killed by the ADF in May. There are also clashes between ADF and Mai Mai militias around Mount Ruwenzori and between two different Mai Mai groups in the Lubero territory of North Kivu, the Nduma Defence of Congo led by a warlord called Guidon Cirimwami and the Front of Patriots for People/People’s Army. Eventually, in front of this situation, the Congolese authorities decided to extend the duration of the state of siege for 15 days on the 3 June. And President Tshisekedi said in a press conference in Goma on the 14 June that it would remain in vigour for an unlimited period of time, as a necessary measure to eradicate the violence of the 120-armed groups which are active in Eastern Congo.

Yet, people in Kivu express doubts about the possibility of a victory. Despite considerable funding, the UN, the Congolese army have shown unable so far to stop violence in the region. One of the explanations is that General Muhindi Akili Mundos, now under US sanctions who was appointed by former President Joseph Kabila, as head of operations in 2014 and 2015 has been accused of cooperating with the rebels and making business with them instead of fighting them.
According to the manager of a coffee estate of North Kivu, it is an open secret that the DFLR and the Congolese army are working hand in hand. The officers of the Congolese police and of the FARDC are often seen in the company of Hutu rebels’ officers. Sometimes, the UN Mission for the Stabilisation of Congo (MONUSCO) blue helmets or the FARDC organise military operations against the rebels. But curiously, the rebels and almost everyone in the area are warned that the operation will take place, three days in advance. At the end of the day, the DFLR or other rebel militias leave their camps before the operation and only a few elders or injured fighters remain there and get arrested. Beside unconfirmed allegations of corruption concerning some Congolese army officers or UN military, a current explanation of such attitude is that warning the rebels means avoiding major clashes. “Neither the UN or the Congolese troops are really keen to risk their lives” says our source.

Other provinces of Eastern Congo are facing similar problems. President Tshisekedi has been urged by the civil society of the Upper and Lower Uélé provinces, close to the border of the Central African Republic, to impose also the “state of siege” to allow army operations against the Mbororo cattle herders from Chad and the Central African Republic who are equipped with AK47.
In South Kivu, the situation is also volatile. The Congolese army detained in June a former military officer, now leader of an armed group who claims to defend the rights of the Banyamulenge shepherds in the Itombwe Highlands against militias from other ethnic groups. But tensions remain. Simultaneously, a large exodus is taking place from the President’s Kasai region towards the much richer Katanga area. The migration which is triggered by hunger could spark ethnic violence in the destination area. The Katanguese who perpetrated pogroms in the 1990s against the Kasaians fear that they could be “ invaded” by their neighbours. In addition, since Kabila is no longer in office, Katanguese are frustrated not to hold anymore the key jobs in the government. Difficult times are ahead.

François Misser

 

Mali “A coup within a coup” in an increasingly fragile country.

The 24 May coup against an attempt to reduce the influence of the military has increasee tensions between the authorities and their main supporter in the war against the jihadists that could be lost since France and its Sahelian allies do not appear to share any longer the same strategy. Meanwhile, the jihadists are making progress.

On the last 24 May, a communiqué announced the dissolution of the government on the national TV and a government reshuffle. Two or the five colonels of the ruling junta formed after the 18 August 2020 coup which overthrew the civilian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK), accused of corruption, the Defence Minister Sadio Camara and the Minister of Security, Modibo Kane, were sacked by the transition President, the 70 years old retired colonel, Bah N’Daw. The latter was seeking to reduce the influence of the military in the interim government, following popular protests and strikes against the growing militarization of the institutions and also against their lack of efficiency.

However, the reshuffle prompted a third officer, Colonel Assimi Goïta, the commander of the special forces and the Vice-President of the transition government, who is considered as the master mind of the August coup, to stage what has been dubbed in Bamako as “a coup within the coup”. A few hours after the broadcast of the communiqué announcing the government reshuffle, Goïta retaliated with another communiqué which stated that he had been forced to act in order to “rectify the transition”. Later on, he told religious leaders in Bamako that Bah N’Daw’s decision had been a dangerous one since he had excluded from the government, two commanders of the national guard and therefore was threatening to create divisions within the army in a situation which is already very fragile, in front of the jihadist military expansion. On the same day, the transition President and Prime Minister were arrested at their homes and brought to the Kati military camp, at 15 km from Bamako and forced to resign. Four days later, on the 28 May, Goïta was proclaimed by the Constitutional Court.

Colonel Assimi Goita. The new transition President.

The 30 May, in an interview published by the Paris-based weekly Journal du dimanche (JDD), the French President, Emmanuel Macron disapproved the coup and threatened to pull out the 5,100 troops of the French anti-jihadist “Barkhane” operation in Sahel, Macron wanted to show his irritation in front of alleged plans by the authors of the coup to strike a deal with the Al Qaida and Islamic State related groups, which would have undermined seriously the Barkhane operation. Macron’s narrative is that there is no point for France fighting the jihadists if the Malian authorities (like those of Burkina-Faso) are simultaneously holding openly talks with the enemy and giving him a kind of political recognition and credibility. This is particularly the case of the authors of the 24 May coup who consider the Great Imam of Bamako, Mahmoud Dicko, as their spiritual guide. It is an open secret that negotiations between the authorities and the jihadists have the imam’s blessing. Yet, this trend is not a new one. Before IBK was overthrown last August, such negotiations had started.
In the event of such deal, the continuation of Barkhane would become meaningless, considers the French establishment. “We do not have a vocation to stay there forever”, told Macron to the French paper.
Another source of irritation for Paris, is the new Malian President’s decision to appoint as Prime Minister, Chogué Maïga, a former minister considered as pro-Russian.

ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria.

Macron’s warning was aiming at putting pressure on the regional leaders of the Economic Community of West-African States (ECOWAS) who met on the 31 May in a special summit to find a common response against the authors of the coup, with the hope they could persuade them to come back to the constitutional order.
But off the record, French analysts doubt that the threat of a withdrawal of French troops will materialize in the near future.
Three days after Colonel Goita was sworn in as Mali’s transitional president on the 7 June, Macron announced during a press conference that France’s Barkhane counter-terrorism operation would come to an end and be merged into a broader international mission. Accordingly, the details of such withdrawal should be finalized by the end of June after consultations with African and European partners.
Yet, the withdrawal will not be immediate and would even take years. Half of the 5,100 troops of Barkhane should be pulled out during the first quarter of 2023. The plan is to keep later a reduced number of special forces of some hundred troops and provide support to the armies of the G5 member states, alongside with European partners, within the European “Takuba” operation. The problem however is that France’s EU partners are not very enthusiastic about participating to it.
The problem is that the mission is challenging. Macron says that France cannot go on working with governments in the Sahel who negotiate with Islamist militants. At the same time, France suspended its joint military operations with Malian forces. Finally, eight years after its launch in 2013, Operation Barkhane has not been a success. It has not been able to stop the jihadist expansion in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
At least 50 French troops died in combat, over 8,000 Africans mainly civilians have been killed, about two million people have been displaced, stress French media.

French troops in Mali.

Meanwhile, at the regional level, the reaction is cautious. The Accra summit of the 31 May called for a return to the constitutional order and suspended Mali from participating to the ECOWAS institutions. The ECOWAS called for the creation of an inclusive government with a much strong civilian component. One of the consequences is that Mali will not access anymore to certain loans but altogether ECOWAS did not adopt a package of severe sanctions like in 2012, when it decided to close the borders with Mali and applied economic sanctions. Altogether, considers the political scientist Niagale Bagayoko, one can consider that the package or regional sanctions is a “minimalist” one. On the 3 June, the African Union also announced Mali’s suspension. But critics find this kind of measure as a toothless one.

At the same time, observers point out that the 24 May coup was received with much indifference in the streets of Bamako. Such apathy or fear from repression by the military does not give much incentive to fellow African leaders to be more “papists than the pope”.
In fact, the only demonstration which was reported was one of the military junta supporters with some of them, waving Russian flags.
The problem with adopting sanctions against Bamako’s new military regime is that they might further weaken the already fragile Malian army, which despite, the French and UN presence, has lost a lot of ground to the jihadists. In the centre of Mali, around the city of Mopti, the jihadists are now controlling the countryside, with the fighters of the Fulani preacher, Amadou Kouffa’s Macina “Katiba” (brigade) striking deals with the village chiefs of the Niger Delta and even of the Dogon mountains. For years now, the jihadist presence is no longer restricted to the Tuaregs’ Northern area but has expanded deep to the South.

Less than a week after the coup, the Malian army showed again its tremendous vulnerability, when a group of jihadists attacked a road checkpoint in the South of the country, at Bougouni, on the strategic road between Bamako and the border of Cote d’Ivoire, killing one policeman and four civilians. This is the first time, the jihadist carried out an attack in this area, which had been considered as safe until then.
United States already cut their military support to the Malian army. It is likely that the coup may deter other European states to get more involved in the “Takuba” mission of training and advisory to the Malian combat troops. An additional problem is that the authors of the coup claim say that the implementation of the 18 months roadmap of the transition and the return to constitutional normality which includes free and fair elections, will be delayed, which causes irritation among Mali’s international partners. But attempts to strangulate or coerce the ruling military risk to undermine them at the very moment they face enormous difficulties against an enemy who knows the fields and operates in mobile motorbike units, like a sort of modern cavalry and is increasingly ruling large areas of the country, imposing the sharia law.

François Misser

 

 

 

 

Central African Republic. Giving Hope.

A country broken by years of civil war. The difficult journey towards reconstruction. The need for reconciliation and forgiveness. Comments by Mons. Jesús Ruiz, the new bishop of Mbaiki, in the southwest of the country.

For eight and a half years, we have been immersed in brutal armed conflict. As the Church, we live this suffering with the people, not only with the Christians but with the entire people of Central Africa. The Church is a moral beacon for the country, one of its reference points. Despite the war, we have remained at our post, unable to do much, by the side of the suffering people.
The people of Central Africa understand this as is shown in Bangui, the capital, where the number of people applying to join the catechumenate and be baptised has increased three times over.

Mons. Jesús Ruiz, the new bishop of Mbaiki.

As the Episcopal Conference of Central Africa, we have spoken clearly on three aspects. The first is the reconstruction of the social fabric. This does not involve rebuilding the hospitals that were destroyed or the schools that were burned down – all that will come later; now is the time to rebuild hearts, to heal wounds and dry tears since every family is forever mourning the loss of members who were killed. We have a country full of common graves and a terrible hatred has been created. Nor should we forget the 1.5 million internally displaced people and refugees who must return to their homes. All of this will demand immense pastoral commitment.
Secondly, there is the question of justice. There can be no real peace without justice and at this time, there is total impunity in the CAR. Assassins of thousands have been appointed ministers, some of whom are being prosecuted by the International Court of Justice (CPI). Justice is not revenge; victims need to be heard, otherwise we shall have a peace that cohabits with lacerated hearts.

Then we are faced with the need for mercy which must lead us to reconciliation and forgiveness but will need time to heal all the wounds. The Church has always maintained that Central African Muslims have the right to live in their own country and this has made us unpopular. Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga was even insulted for preaching reconciliation and that Christians and Muslims can learn to live together. I recall how people in my parish of Mongoumba used to call me ‘The Chadian’ because I defended the Muslims.
When, in 2017, I celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving for my episcopal ordination, people of my very own community whistled at me during the homily for having said that, until the Muslims who had fled the country came back, we would never be the people God wants. This is why reconciliation is fundamental to the universal fraternity that the Church has always preached and which is proper to it.

Mbaiki, the diocese entrusted to me, has an area of 20,000 km2 and about 300,000 inhabitants, 20% of whom are Catholic. We have ten parishes, seven diocesan priests and a dozen religious priests as well as about thirty Sisters, almost all of whom are Congolese. We are very short of personnel but we are helped by many committed catechists and lay people. Together, we shall have to implement reconstruction, justice and mercy in the diocese. Not one Muslim is left in Mbaiki; all of them have disappeared and all the mosques have been destroyed. We cannot ignore this situation and we have to do all we can to get them to return.

One area in question that touches my heart is that of the Pygmies who are present in all the parishes of the diocese. Despite being between 15,000 and 20,000, they are a minority oppressed by the rest of the population. Our diocese, too, must respond positively to these brothers and sisters of ours. We have already started some schools and other initiatives specifically for them but I dream of a special pastoral plan for these people. Of course, we must not forget the ecological question either. Our territory lies within the basin of the River Congo and is the victim of large-scale deforestation – uncontrolled deforestation goes on night and day – that is destroying the forest. This is all connected with the exploitation of mineral resources. The Russian company Lobaye is mining gold regardless of the pollution of the entire environment, leaving aside its effects on the local population. Our little Church is not very powerful and I am not yet sure how to tackle all this, but we must network and condemn these situations. We must also empower our catechetical in-training in Justice and Peace. For now, I am following my episcopal motto: ‘He loved me and gave himself for me’, because the missionary experience comes from knowing one is loved by Our Lord and so, if I manage to love my people, no sacrifice will have been in vain.

An International Court of Justice to end Impunity for Transnational Companies.

The purpose of private companies is to develop activities that report on economic benefits to their shareholders or owners. Few private companies, apart from seeking economic performance, have in their statutes an altruistic purpose that seeks the integral development of people or the protection of the environment.

The legal regulation of companies is always in conflict with their economic interests and ethical self-regulation of companies is erroneously associated with diminishing profits. It is considered that the more regulations a company must comply with, the greater its obligations, dedicating more material and human resources to it, and therefore it is assumed that the company receives a lower profit margin.

So far, transnational companies (TNCs), regarding human rights and the environment, are subject to the national legislation of the country in which they carry out their activities and in which they have their registered office. In the same way, international treaties or conventions that promote human rights and protect communities, oblige companies if the country has signed and ratified the said treaties.

States oversee making international treaties effective and applying them. Only in some issues are there International Courts of Justice with the capacity to judge certain crimes against humanity. However, there is no common human rights and environmental mandatory legislation for all transnationals regardless of the country in which they operate. Moreover, in the case of multinationals, when operating in different countries, they know how to avoid their civil or criminal liability. Until now, with few exceptions, the parent company of a European business group considered itself not responsible for the behaviour of its subsidiaries when they operate in Africa.

There are countless known cases in Africa of large transnationals (SHELL, TOTAL, GLENCORE, SOCFIN, FERONIA, etc.) that have systematically violated human rights with total impunity or breached international legislation on the environment without the states having the capacity to end such impunity.
But not only large transnational companies maintain this attitude, many other international small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) take advantage of the weak democratic institutions and corruption in developing countries to maintain behaviours that evade their obligation to respect fundamental rights of people and communities.

Even though international mechanisms on the behaviour of companies are increasingly demanding, these principles or guidelines are voluntary and leave their implementation to the discretion of the companies themselves. International conventions on human rights and the environment are often ignored and local populations and communities are left unprotected. National legal systems are insufficient to protect the fundamental rights and the environment, making it almost impossible for victims to access justice or request reparation for the damage caused by TNCs.
For this reason, international binding mechanisms are necessary requiring appropriated behaviour and control of transnationals.

Some transnationals flaunt the implementation of voluntary guidelines for Business and human rights as an advertisement for ethical behaviour that makes companies attractive to investors and shareholders. But there are also many cases discovered in which this advertising does not obey reality and the projected image is invented or falsified.

The United Nation legally binding treaty on Business and human rights is an opportunity to transform the voluntary mechanisms of respect for human rights and the environment into direct obligations of companies to which they must be accountable to society. Voluntary mechanisms are clearly insufficient and the treaty need to be united to the creation of an International Court of Justice established to judge non-compliance with direct obligations by companies. With such courts a multiple benefit would be achieved:

First, the creation of an international court of Justice for TNCs reinforces the task of States in the guarantee of human rights and the environment. It is a proactive policy on the part of companies that would no longer limit itself to avoiding certain conflicts but to acting proactively in favour of people’s rights, local communities, and the environment.

Second, the creation of an international court of Justice for TNCs would make it possible to reinforce the effectiveness of human rights. The UN binding treaty on Business and Human Rights must define which are the exact obligations of the companies and would help to classify for what actions and omissions of the companies, these could be judged, sanctioned and punished.

Third, an International Court of Justice for TNCs would guarantee access to justice for the victims and it would provide adequate compensation to those affected by human rights violations caused by transnational corporations. The obligations of the TNCs would not be simply an observance of legal measures but an action to defend and protect the workers’ rights and the health of the communities.

Finally, the International Court of Justice for TNCs would enhance the protection of the environment with concrete obligations. The companies would be obliged to repair the environmental damage caused by their economic activity, as well as the restoration of the environment once their business activity has ended.

The binding treaty must therefore include in its articles the creation of an International Court of Justice for TNCs with clear and concise powers that allow the implementation of the requirements of the treaty. Otherwise, we will be fighting for a clawless treaty in which states can continue to act without the zeal necessary to end the impunity of TNCs.

The International Court of Justice for transnationals is not a substitute for national justice but one more mechanism that helps nations to protect human dignity.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

Photo Gallery – Snapshots from Africa

Advocacy

Semia Gharbi. Fighting against eco-mafias.

She played a key role in a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia, resulting in the return of 6,000…

Read more

Baobab

The swallow brings the summer.

The Black and white swallow flew high up in the clear, blue sky, wheeling and diving, his fast, pointed wings carrying him at a great speed. Swallow…

Read more

Youth & Mission

Pope Leo and the Youth.

Welcoming, listening and guiding. Some characteristics of Pope Leo with the youth During the years when Father Robert Francis Prevost was pastor of the church of Our…

Read more